The last few decades have witnessed myriad breakthroughs in studies on single molecules, nanometer-scale structures and quantum phenomena in general. Exciting results continue to emerge at a rapid rate and proposed applications for them are quick to follow. In order to realize these applications and pursue research at similar and even smaller scales, reliable methods are needed to electronically connect atoms, molecules, nanostructures and other components at the nanoscale. Further advancements in size reduction and geometrical control of nanostructures below about 10 nm will open unique new possibilities in the study of plasmonics, superconductivity, spintronics, and quantum electronics. Such an advancement will also open the door to a wide range of studies in nanofluidics and even has the potential to enable high speed DNA sequencing.
Transmission electron beams (TEBs) have long been used to study materials at nanometer scales and in some cases have also been shown to affect a material's structure during imaging. Although it has been know that TEBs are capable of altering nanoscale material structure, there is still an urgent need to reliably fabricate nanoscale structures with even greater accuracy and precision compared to currently existing techniques. There is also a present need for more flexible and rapid fabrication technique that can be easily inspected using TEM.
For large scale integration of many electronic components, superconducting nanowires are desirable to minimize the heat dissipation. Studies of the breakdown of superconductivity as a function of the reduced wire size is of practical importance in determining the limit to miniaturization of superconducting electronic circuits. It remains to be established whether there is a limit to how thin a superconducting wire can be before its character changes from superconducting to normal and what sets this limit. Studies of quantum suppression of superconductivity have been reported down to ˜15 nm wires which were fabricated on suspended carbon nanotubes. One problem with the fabrication method using suspended carbon nanotubes is that once the superconducting nano-wire goes normal, the generated Joule heat is not efficiently removed out from the wire and the wire easily melts; consequently, it is difficult to study the normal and insulating regimes. Accordingly, there is a present need for a reliable geometrical control of local normal and superconducting regimes.